A Movable Feast
Beck Center may be the most conflicted theater complex in Northeast Ohio. It seems to want to please everyone, from diehard silver-haired reactionaries to avant-garde alternative lifestyle advocates. When uninspired, its theatrical enterprises have the blandness of nursing home entertainment. At other times, ambition overextends its grasp, resulting in so-called musical epics that are the…
Facial Expressions
Impressionist artists like Monet and Renoir didn’t just paint water lilies and gardens. A bold and colorful new exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art, called Faces of Impressionism: Portraits From American Collections, suggests that, though we are all familiar with their talent for capturing the momentary appearances of nature, these artists also excelled at…
Sweet and Sour Citrus
It’s too bad about our recent dinner at Citrus, the six-month-old restaurant in the Inter-Continental Hotel on the Cleveland Clinic campus. We knew going in that the spot was no Classics, the marble-and-white-linen-bedecked bastion of fine dining in the former Omni Hotel, which was torn down last year to make room for the more commodious…
Side Dish
The Food Fight You’ve probably noticed that we Americans are abandoning the privacy of our own kitchens (you know, the room with the microwave?) ever more often, in favor of scarfing down our three squares a day in public places. While this is good news for folks in the ever-expanding hospitality industry, studies (and our…
Goin’ Back to Cali
Rapper Del the Funky Homosapien is somewhere on the road, speaking from a cell phone that’s crackling and popping with enough static to make you think he’s calling from an underground bunker. Actually, Del himself is confused as to his exact location. “I don’t know where I am,” he admits. “I’m on my way to…
Flexing Their Muscle Cars
If there were a beauty contest for cars, this would be it. The asphalt quivers as the bombshells peel off the road into the parking lot, their engines growling down the runway. They snake past clusters of paparazzi, the fragrant outdoor hamburger stand, and the silver-and-black row of motorcycles. The target: a prime parking space…
Case Open
According to his official bio, the title of Peter Case’s new album, Flying Saucer Blues, is a reference to an old Mississippi rockabilly roadhouse. But for Case, it’s also a description of a state of mind, specifically “walking around, looking at the world now, and feeling like I just got here in a flying saucer;…
Shticking Points
According to Avi Hoffman, anyone who has laughed at Mel Brooks or Woody Allen enjoys Jewish humor. Even Jerry Seinfeld can be seen as a continuation of the comedy that emerged from Yiddish vaudeville. But Hoffman, who will be performing Too Jewish Two at the Halle Theatre Sunday, doesn’t see this as proof that the…
James Carter
An extravagant offering that pays homage as it points to the future, these two CDs reaffirm James Carter’s position as one of the top modern saxophonists. Their execution is more than equal to their ambition. They represent jazz as it should be: streetwise, sophisticated, passionate, and engaged. What the discs have in common may be…
Going, Gone
Blink — or, more likely, doze — and you will miss it, this tiny, beautiful oasis in the middle of an otherwise barren wasteland. For a moment — a precious, frustrating moment to be treasured in a movie that flaunts its disposability — Nicolas Cage reminds us how good an actor he can be when…
Various Artists
A follow-up to the forgettable 1994 release Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath wasn’t really warranted, but don’t tell that to Ozzy Osbourne, whose new label, Divine Records, is giving it another go with Nativity in Black II. The difference this time around is that bands such as Ugly Kid Joe and White…
Four Play
Digital video is poised to become a major factor in commercial filmmaking, and Time Code, the new feature from Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas), could be used as a commercial for the process. The movie is not so much an intriguing story as it is a story told intriguingly — which may be just as…
Charlie Hunter; Medeski Martin & Wood
Charlie Hunter and Medeski Martin & Wood, instrumentalists who developed their styles while living on opposite coasts, each have a penchant for infusing a groove aesthetic with jazz arrangements and improvisation. Hunter’s growing cult of enthusiasts should find his latest album a worthy addition to his annual output of melodically enhanced groove tunes, while Medeski…
Wrecks Mark the Spot
F.H. Prince. A 240-foot wooden steamer that caught fire off Kelley’s Island in 1911; in shallow water, frequented by scuba students. Marshall F. Butters. One of four ships that sank on Black Friday, October 20, 1916; the crew was saved when a steamer saw smoke blowing from the Butters’s whistle. Morning Star and Courtland. In…
Liquid
Liquid — singer-guitarist Joey DePasquale, drummer Anthony Pines, bassist Keny Clark, and guitarist G. David Hido — formed three years ago and has opened for acts such as Buckcherry, Tom Petty, and Oleander. After winning the “Guitar Center/Beyond Records Musicians Choice Contest” in 1998, the group’s song “Migraine” was included on a nationally distributed compilation,…
Reinventing Rehab
Sitting in the quiet, freshly whitewashed living room of a former convent, Sister Joan Gallagher admits she doesn’t quite know what she’s getting into. After all, she’s never looked after nine sick, homeless men before. “There are so many people this could help,” says Sister Joan, “but a lot of pieces have to fall into…
Soundbites
The progressive Wexner Center for the Arts, located on the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, has put together an ambitious performance art exhibit titled The Church of What’s Happening Now. The exhibit, which opens on June 8 and runs through August 13, will consist of a reading room of multimedia material (audiotapes, videos, magazines)…
Bottom dwellers
A half-mile off Kelley’s Island, on an August morning, the F.H. Prince caught fire. Flames shot 30 feet high from the wooden steamer’s upper bow. Though three ships rushed over from Cedar Point and pumped water onto the fire, the captain beached the Prince, and he and his crew of 15 abandoned ship. A few…
Don Henley
Don Henley. Monday, June 12, at Blossom
Eat to the Beat
Like any red-blooded American, Kristen Baumliér drank beer while keeping fit. During her leg lifts and arm curls, she’d sip from a cold brewski to prevent dehydration and sweat to the tunes of her favorite postpunk bands. But being the constructive type who pushes limits, Baumliér wasn’t content with just guzzling. So she started pumping…
The Sadies, with Cash Audio
The brainchild of Canadian brothers Dallas and Travis Good, the Sadies are typical of the Bloodshot Records roster. The band members hold citizenship in a number of other working bands, and they present familiar themes in unfamiliar ways. Dallas Good continues to explore surf-like tones with his previous project, Phonocomb, while twisting the idea of…
The Edge
A revolution is afoot at the Free Clinic, where about 70 percent of staffers recently voted to unionize. Changes in management structure, firings, and other organizational headaches prompted the usually laid-back health workers to file last week for an official union election with the National Labor Relations Board. For months, the staff has been meeting…
Fred Eaglesmith
Fred EaglesmithFor a guy who says he’s not influenced by other artists, singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith sure gets his share of comparisons. Often described along the lines of Bruce Springsteen, Joe Ely, Steve Earle, John Prine, Robert Earl Keen, and even Bob Dylan, Eaglesmith was one of nine children born to a farming family in southern…
A Puff of Smoke
His name appears in almost every book written about Groucho Marx, so much so, he has been given the appropriate appellation by members of the Marx family: Wesso. But Paul Wesolowski is of no relation to the famous clan. He’s a man in his 40s who lives outside Philadelphia and, several times a month, works…
Conte Candoli
Chet Baker might have made all the headlines with his drug busts, but his contemporary, Conte Candoli, was arguably the finest trumpet player to emerge from Los Angeles in the ’40s and ’50s. Born in 1927 in Mishawaka, Indiana, Candoli was a member of Woody Herman’s band as a teenager, recording his first solo on…
Letters to the Editor
It’s True: The Mayor’s a MeanyJust wanted to comment on the wonderful article in this week’s Scene [“A Question of Style,” June 1]. I am a former long-term employee of the City of Cleveland. I say former because, after years of abuse, I rebuilt my confidence and left city employment to return to the private…
